White Supremacists Are Using Black Metal To Promote Hate

Twenty years on, black metal itself is inescapably influential and multifaceted but also embroiled in a kind of tumult exercised by the warring parts of the music’s trajectory; this struggle may be best exemplified by the simultaneous respect and scorn heaped onto the figure of Varg Vikernes, one of the founders of black metal’s Norwegian second wave. No fan of black metal underestimates the influence of Buruzm, Vikernes’ primary musical project, but just as frequently the man is mocked for his shifting philosophy and attempts at Viking play-acting on film and in interviews. Vikernes’ legacy has been intensely scrutinized, and while this one man takes the brunt of criticism, other actors have cemented a bridge between white nationalism and black metal more successfully (and more quietly) than he. National Socialist Black Metal, or NSBM, is parasite that feeds on that part of black metal steeped in bigotry and violence.

My subsequent research would prove Hefner wrong—and lead me down a rabbit hole into a hate-filled world, where a fashionable genre of metal music that gets mentioned on NPR is actively being used by people whose primary interest in music is as a vehicle for spreading hate.

Lol. This writer is quite the dandy. Black metal was a vehicle for spreading hate before it was a fashionable genre of metal music. Could it be possible that he just doesn't know? Even though he ran a black metal blog?!

Why are people (metal fans and non-metallers alike) more prone to lose their minds when a band is openly hateful against Jews or any other race/religion, when hating Christians and liberals normal for other bands in the same field? Hell, some bands are openly misanthropic and have songs themed around the destruction of humanity altogether. Why don't these acts ruffle so many feathers? I guess themes like Satan and planet-wide humanicide are just not as easy to take seriously as anything that might whiff of Naziism in the slightest.

Why are people (metal fans and non-metallers alike) more prone to lose their minds when a band is openly hateful against Jews or any other race/religion, when hating Christians and liberals normal for other bands in the same field?

Social programming. Logical inconsistencies are probably considered a feature.

There's an implicit assumption that Metal participation entails some type of 'otherness', yet subculture participants are often more conformist than average, due to their strong desire to appropriate an external identity. The younger they are the worse it is.

Also, it's fairly standard practice to retroactively impose ideology over arbitrary youth subcultures. The true underlying patterns that bind a subculture together are often entirely implicit with a complete lack of explicit rules (probably due to them forming from the bottom up). Participants develop an intuitive feel for what works and doesn't when socializing in the group. Anyone sufficiently adept at manipulating the implicit rules, increases his in-group status, and is free to impose semi arbitrary explicit rules. Disagree? leave our club poser/hipster/personwhoisn'tauthenticlikeme.

And by the way, "political" music from the right tends to be fucking terrible. They rightfully treat it as a generic propaganda platform and produce things via template without any pretense of art. While the left seems to produce narcissistic love ballads dedicated to whatever darling idea they are currently fetishizing.

Why are people (metal fans and non-metallers alike) more prone to lose their minds when a band is openly hateful against Jews or any other race/religion, when hating Christians and liberals normal for other bands in the same field?

Social programming. Logical inconsistencies are probably considered a feature.

There's an implicit assumption that Metal participation entails some type of 'otherness', yet subculture participants are often more conformist than average, due to their strong desire to appropriate an external identity. The younger they are the worse it is.

Also, it's fairly standard practice to retroactively impose ideology over arbitrary youth subcultures. The true underlying patterns that bind a subculture together are often entirely implicit with a complete lack of explicit rules (probably due to them forming from the bottom up). Participants develop an intuitive feel for what works and doesn't when socializing in the group. Anyone sufficiently adept at manipulating the implicit rules, increases his in-group status, and is free to impose semi arbitrary explicit rules. Disagree? leave our club poser/hipster/personwhoisn'tauthenticlikeme.

And by the way, "political" music from the right tends to be fucking terrible. They rightfully treat it as a generic propaganda platform and produce things via template without any pretense of art. While the left seems to produce narcissistic love ballads dedicated to whatever darling idea they are currently fetishizing.

?

As much as I wish it weren't so, your last paragraph is too true. Nevertheless, I'll take the amateur propaganda over the sap any day.

Political music from the right is terrible because it is political music. Consider instead Absurd. It is the essence, not the superficial `politics`. Clumsy, almost retarded seeming (to regulars), but imbued with a germanic spirit that would make hitler`s hairs stand on end.